Theatre Department Dreams Up Rendition of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

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Senior Shane Watson and junior Jordan Pflieger share a scene in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Pflieger enjoys taking her role and developing it further. I like being able to try and figure out how another person would react to something; I think that’s very interesting in the fact that I can take a role on in my own perspective and try to interpret how the person would be feeling in a certain situation. I like that," said Pflieger. Photo by Anna Feild

Pflieger delivers a monologue as her character Helena. The cast were challenged in memorizing their lines, but they were eventually successful. Pflieger said, "Shakespeare, he’s a little wild; he loves description... which has led to some trouble memorizing lines because now we have to have the rhyming into effect too, and it’s just basically crazy. It’s different than what we’ve done before in terms of line memorization." Photo by Anna Feild

Students work diligently backstage between scenes. This dedication is one of sophomore stage manager Kelsey Custer's favorite part of theatre. "I just really love the community, and it makes me really happy to see everyone get together and work really long hours," said Custer. Photo by Anna Feild

Actors spend a lot of their time in the makeup rooms between their scenes due to the intricate makeup of the show. Sophomore lead costume and makeup designer Emily Polonowski faced challenges when designing costumes to match the lighting and designing makeup for the first time. Polonowski said, "Being lead costume and makeup design, I really get to have more freedom with what I want to do; I’m given more bigger challenges and projects. I think just working on all of the fairies together was really interesting, and designing makeup and hair was really something new because it was something that was kind of thrown at me and I had to figure my way through it, and it was just really interesting to be able to see like ‘hey, I came up with that, I made this, I did that.’ I did a lot more this year than I’ve ever done for a show before, so it’s very uplifting to know that I have that ability to be able to do that." Photo by Anna Feild

A big part of bringing a production to life is the costumes, and Polanowski believes that a character's costume is a reflection of their personality. "So I think the costumes kind of represent different things. We have the human beings, the Athenians, they’re all wearing pale colors and are normal; and then anything that’s a fairy or a king or queen, they have all of these bright colors and I think it can transmit different moods or styles or the way a person acts - if they’re super goofy or if they’re very serious and they take stuff to heart - and I just think it adds another level of dimension and emotion to the show," said Polanowski. Photo by Anna Feild

Pflieger and senior Camryn Brakmann share the stage together. The dark blue lighting is heavily present throughout the show due to it being set at night; this provided an obstacle for the costume crew to overcome. Polanowski said, "But a lot of it was just making sure that with the lighting that’s different this year, it’s a lot of dark blue lighting since it is at night. So we had to wrap all of our costumes to fit that lighting and all of the makeup to work with it because some colors don’t stand out as much." Photo by Anna Feild

Polanowski enjoys the process of preparing for the performances. "I really think that at the beginning, it’s kind of slow when trying to figure out what we want to do, but as soon as we get into starting tech week and everything, the excitement and the buildup in seeing everything come together; and all of the stuff I’ve made, seeing it be worn and used on stage is just a really awesome thing to see, so that’s what I look forward to," said Polanowski. Photo by Anna Feild

Pflieger was unsure about putting on one of Shakespeare's works due to the complex wording, but she is appreciative of the challenge it provided to the theatre department. Pflieger said, "I’m actually really excited because I like Shakespeare, I just don’t really like the wording. I think lots of his plays, the plots are very ingenious, but some of the wording is a little unnecessary. Like, a paragraph just to say ‘let’s go’? That’s a little unnecessary. But I find it very interesting and challenging, and something that we haven’t done before that will help our theatre department grow, in terms of seniors and underclassmen right now." Photo by Anna Feild

With Shakespeare being difficult to understand, the theatre department used multiple techniques to help the audience comprehend the plot. Custer said, "We definitely knew that this was going to be a really difficult show to sell to people and make it easier to understand. So our solution to that is, we have little paragraph summaries in our program; but also, our actors are supposed to be focusing on body language more than they are their talking because nobody can really understand Shakespeare unless you read it twenty times." Photo by Anna Feild

Sophomore crew member Delani King watches over the props backstage. Pflieger, along with the rest of the cast, appreciate the hard work crew put into the show. " I’m looking forward to showing everyone all the hard, hard work that we have done, because I just want people to be able to appreciate everything that goes into theatre. And... the crew for being able to put sets together and organize lighting and sound which is a really complicated process," said Pflieger. Photo by Anna Feild

The crew faced the challenge of putting on shows without their tech director. Stage manager Kelsey Custer had the opportunity to learn a lot from this experience. Custer said, "I’ve learned that it takes a lot of effort to make a show come alive. With my tech director not being here and me being in charge, I’ve definitely learned a lot and learned management and delegating things; but I think I did fairly well enough." Photo by Anna Feild

Polanowski is looking forward to see the cast succeed after all of their hard work and to see the audience enjoying the show. Polanowski said, " think I’m just looking forward to seeing the cast because the cast did struggle for a long time with learning how to use the Shakespearean words and getting them down, to see it all come together and see the set and everything, being able to look backstage into the audience and see the people laughing or their eyes light up when they see something new, or just to see the audience’s reaction to some of the stuff that’s taken us months to work on. It’s really fulfilling." Photo by Anna Feild

The cast and crew's apprehensions of putting on a show by William Shakespeare have disappeared after seeing it all come together. Custer said, "I never liked Shakespeare, reading it in school or anything like that; I thought it was just really hard to understand. But after seeing the cast put it on, I think it is a really funny play, and it’s just a good play if you sit down and watch it, if you have the patience to watch it. It’s a good play." Photo by Anna Feild

Everyone involved hopes that the audience will gain a deeper appreciation for the theatre department and Shakespeare after this production. Polanowski said, "It’s something where people, when they hear Shakespeare, they’re like ‘oh gosh, I’m not looking forward to that,’ but really, there’s something, there’s a whole new way to look at it when the dialogue is different than your average, you really have to actually pay attention to everything else that’s going on to be able to understand. I think they can look at theatre and what we do here in a different light with this show." Photo by Anna Feild